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How did the San Antonio Silver Stars stay with the Phoenix Mercury on a poor shooting night?

The Phoenix Mercury beat the San Antonio Silver Stars behind increasingly confident play from star rookie Brittney Griner. But how did the Stars even stay as close as they did?

So how do you stay in a game when you can shoot better than 40% or get killed on the boards while Brittney Griner is scoring a career-high 26 points as the San Antonio Silver Stars did in their 83-77 loss to the Phoenix Mercury tonight on ESPN2?

Don't waste many possessions with turnovers.

Team Turnovers Turnover rate
Phoenix 13 13.12%
San Antonio 7 7.45%

Turnover rates for the Mercury and Silver Stars on Tuesday night.

Even for the normally steady ball-handling Silver Stars (best turnover differential in the Western Conference entering this week), that's an impressive performance.

In the third quarter, the Silver Stars didn't turn the ball over at all and beat the Mercury by a score of 23-10 while Danielle Adams was hitting shots from the perimeter while Jia Perkins was able to get a couple of buckets off of penetration.

With the Stars shooting 9-for-24 from the 3-point line (37.5%) and taking care of the ball, they were almost able to overcome their other struggles. And even though they fell short, it's yet another impressive effort from a team that would be easy to count out given who they were missing.

For more on the Silver Stars, visit SB Nation's San Antonio Spurs site Pounding the Rock.